


The Runaway

by calenlily



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Cultural Differences, F/M, Female autonomy, Gen, The everyday challenges of leadership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: What happens when a Lord’s daughter decides the best way to avoid an unwanted betrothal is to run off to the Weyr?A whole lot of headaches for the Weyrleaders who have to deal with the fallout, that’s what.
Relationships: F'lar | Fallarnon/Lessa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	The Runaway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> Vaguely set somewhere between _Dragonquest_ and _The White Dragon_.

“We have a bit of a situation,” Manora apprises Benden’s Weyrleaders.

“What kind of situation?” Lessa asks warily.

“It appears that the Weyr is currently playing host to Lord Raid’s youngest daughter,” the Headwoman replies, composed as ever.

“What fool brought her in?” F’lar demands.

“R’mel.”

The Weyrleader frowns. R’mel is an easygoing brown rider, and not one usually noted for womanizing. Not at all the kind of rider he’d have expected to be responsible for a mess like this.

The Weyrleaders exchange a grim look, knowing it’s only a matter of time before they find an angry Lord on their doorstep, railing about abduction. It’s going to be a headache and a half to get to the bottom of the matter before then.

***

While F’lar deals with the errant rider, Lessa talks to the young woman.

“Raina, Weyrwoman,” the girl introduces herself, bobbing a curtsy. She’s a pretty little thing in her late teens, with dark eyes and an impressive amount of composure considering her situation.

“Raina, I’m sure your family is frantic over your absence. I can arrange to have a rider bring you home as soon as you’d like,” she suggests solicitously. The offer is genuine, but she is more interested in testing how the girl will react than hopeful that things could really be resolved so simply.

Indeed, her suggestion elicits an abrupt, panicked response. “You can’t!” Raina bursts out. “Weyrlady, I’m... I’m compromised. My family nor my intended won’t want me back now.” She blushes delicately, but there’s a stubborn set to her jaw that makes Lessa wonder if this wasn’t exactly what the girl had wanted.

“Your intended?” The Weyrwoman inquires mildly, sensing there’s a story there. She doubts the girl would have volunteered the existence of such a personage for no reason.

Young Raina grimaces. “He’s a boor. My father has the contract all drawn up, without the slightest consideration for what I want.”

Lessa is bitterly unsurprised by that bit of information. She has heard Lord Raid declaim that “you don’t ask youngsters anything, you tell them”; of course he’d be the type to consider his daughter’s consent immaterial to marriage negotiations.

There’s motive enough to explain this whole mess, right there. Irritation wells up, both at fathers who treat their daughters like property and with the girl for making her situation into the Weyr’s problem. But Raina has one thing right: Lessa cannot and will not send her home now, knowing the reception she’d likely receive.

The Weyr looks after its own. And takes responsibility for its own, which all too frequently includes taking in young women with their reputations in ruins because dragonmen are incapable of keeping it in their pants. The fact that she’s quickly becoming convinced this particular young woman deliberately engineered the ruin of her own reputation doesn’t change that.

***

“I hope you didn’t go too hard on R’mel,” Lessa comments when the interview is over.

That opening prompts a curious look from her weyrmate, but he answers the implicit question readily. “Oh, he’ll be taking the late watch for the next few sevendays, and I gave him a dressing down for being led by the wrong head, but there’s only so much I can punish a man for not thinking. He seemed rather overawed by the noble company he’d found himself keeping, and didn’t have much to say for himself other than the repeated insistence that she came willingly. Which I should certainly hope she did, or we have a much more serious problem on our hands.”

“Oh, the girl came willingly, all right,” Lessa confirms acidly. “I’m quite certain she orchestrated the whole affair.”

“Oh?”

“She couldn’t abide the man her father wanted her married to, so she found a rider she could seduce into offering her a way out. Probably got him to compromise her  _ first _ , if I don’t miss my guess, then used that as leverage to guilt him into bringing her here. And now of course she can’t possibly return home as soiled goods.” Lessa’s tone turns sarcastic with those last words.

“Of course,” F’lar repeats dryly. “I will never comprehend Holders’ fetishization of virginity.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “It’s a clever solution, I’ll give her that.”

“Clever enough to tie our hands quite neatly,” Lessa says archly. She pauses before speaking again. “I’ve asked Canth to have a look at her.”

“You mean for her to Stand, then?” It’s earlier than they usually start Search, for the shells are not yet hard, but there  _ is _ a golden egg on the sands at present.

“If he says she has potential, yes. It seems our best chance of smoothing this whole thing over with the Hold. And, much as I hate to reward her for this stunt, she’s certainly quick-witted and determined enough. It might yet work out to our benefit, in the end.” She sighs heavily. “I’m not unsympathetic to her plight, I only wish she hadn’t done it like this. If she’d come to us  _ first _ , I’d have been happy to grant her sanctuary.”

F’lar raises an eyebrow. “That would be interference with Hold autonomy and you know it.”

Lessa sets her lips in a thin line. “We’d have found a way.”

“And now we don’t need to, as she found her own.” When Lessa’s set expression does not change, he tries another tack. “Consider this, love. What would you have done, if you were in her place? Would you have been content to put your security at the mercy of strangers?”

It’s not so hard to imagine; Lessa is noble born. There’s no doubt she would have been expected to marry to Ruatha’s benefit, if Fax had never come. She’d like to think her parents would not have been so callous as to sell her off without her input, but in truth she can hardly remember them.

It’s true that, were she in young Raina’s predicament, she would want to be proactive about finding her own way out; her weyrmate has a point about that much. But she can’t see herself being that irresponsible in the first place.

“ _ I _ would have done my duty to my Hold, and not been a romantic little fool about it,” she retorts. “And what about you? I can’t imagine you being reckless enough to abduct the Lord of Ruatha’s daughter.”

“To be fair, I never imagined being reckless enough to kill a Lord on Search, either, so I’d say that entirely depends on how persuasive you’d decided to be,” he returns with a malicious smile, unable to resist needling her. “Still, I suppose you’re right. In which case I’m grateful it never came to that. The Weyr would be much poorer without you.”

Lessa shudders, contemplating that scenario. She’d twenty-one Turns already when she was Searched. In a world where she’d made it through adolescence with her birth rank, what were the chances that she’d have still been free at that age? The concept of spending her days as an ornamental wife is enough to make her skin itch, let alone the thought of living without Ramoth. For that much she could almost be grateful to Fax, in some twisted way, that she was beholden to none but herself when a golden egg was clutched.

She shakes her head, trying to dispel the thought. “One thing is certain,” she mutters darkly. “If the girl does Impress, I’m going to be having a very long talk with her about duty and responsibility.”


End file.
